names by which I have gone on the internet

clarabeyer
1998 - 2000. My dad set this email address up for me for some reason when I was like, six. I sent emails to my grandfather at F666666 and experienced Instant Messaging (tm) with CeCe Conner. (On that note, IMing is hard when you're not even sure about how to spell things.) This was back in the day when people didn't think their email addresses should have anything to do with their real names, so I was really quite progressive.

roklime104
2000 - 2003. I decided my real name was boring. Also, I liked the color lime green and I liked going rock climbing with my dad on sunday afternoons and I thought it was a subtle thing to imply that I "rokked," as it were. This was the same time that I developed a fear of heights, actually, and would climb up the wall with no difficulty only to have a panic attack at the top.

klairahgal48
2003 - 2007. I decided my real name was so boring that I couldn't even bear to use it in real life. My friends had names that started with the letter K and so I wanted to conform while making myself cool and different at the same time. At this time in my life, I tried to write novels that mostly focused on a girl named "Elizabeth" deciding to go by "Liza" when she moved to a new town. Also, my two first relationships developed on this IM account. In fact, they almost entirely existed on this IM account.

clarachick44@yahoo.com
2006. For some reason AIM was not enough. Victoria Thomas told me that Yahoo was the cool thing to have and we posted song lyrics as our away messages. I don't remember ever talking to anyone on this account.

clarazzle44
2007 - 2008. CeCe convinced me that this was a good idea. I was in that awkward phase where I realized that I do not spell my name with a K, but wasn't sure whether I wanted another fun handle or a "serious" email address. Also I had a thing for the number four, it appears. This was the time that I'm pretty sure all of us were "invisible" online all the time, just waiting to see.

@clarabellum
2008 - present. Twitter is the best. Mr. Abbott, my seventh grade advisor and American History teacher, used to call me that, because I was smart, I suppose. When I was constructing my new clever mature internet identity, this seemed like a way that I wanted to portray myself.

csb324
2008 - present. When I set this up, I knew I needed a gmail account but wasn't sure for what. I was in the mood to be cryptic (a la F666666) when most people on the internet were using their real goddamn names. Clara is countercultural as shit. You know. The standard.

Love always,
Clara

the start of a new month

I was only fooled once today, and it's not that I was fooled so much as that I was a little confused. I'm counting this as a success.
I used to really love April Fool's Day, I think because I used to really love fucking with people when I was younger. Now I just like seeing what Google comes up with.

If we were at school, I bet Brown would have a healthy number of carefully orchestrated April Fools jokes. No such luck though.

Tonight I came home to Claudia (my host) making dinner. We sat around and drank champagne and she made some fish and vegetables for the both of us, and then we had some cheese and bits of a pear, and red wine, and tea. It felt very european.

We had a very good time, talking about the various differences between my generation and hers, and America and Europe (which is, of course, a pretty big place). Both of us have had the experience of being from one place and living in the other, so it was an interesting conversation.

I love being treated as though I am a big adult*. It's a very particular feeling and it's one that doesn't come as often as one might hope.

Love always,
Clara

*Apparently this is the expression I used to use when I was a small child.
e.g. "Mom, when I'm a big adult, I'm going to order pizza all the time" or "Why do the big adults sit in the front seat?" (Also, I have no idea what kinds of thoughts went through my head when I was a small child so these are mere approximations for the sake of the example.)

happy holidays

I am so drunk on the christmas spirit and family and probably mostly it was the champagne.

That's okay.

MERRY CHRISTMAS, GUYS!

Love always,

Clara